Pick-up trucks are widely used in business and for recreation for transporting a wide variety of types of cargo. Truck owners may customize their pick-up truck box to provide convenient locations for tie down straps or E-clip connectors that are used to secure tools, motorcycles, recreation vehicles, containers, or other cargo. Pick-up truck owners drill holes in the pick-up truck box or use existing holes or other structural features such as edge flanges or the top end of the bed wall to provide connection points for accessories. Drilling holes in a pick-up truck boxes creates potential problems because it increases the extent of corrosion, disrupts the integrity of the bed walls and may reduce the strength of the structure. Securing objects to a pick-up truck box using existing structural features may not meet all of a user's needs and requirements.
Aluminum is used to fabricate the sidewalls and floor of a pick-up truck to achieve substantial weight savings. Users may drill holes in the sidewalls or bed of prior art steel bed pick-up trucks to establish customized tethering locations. Drilling holes and assembling hooks or eyelets for securing heavy objects to anchors or fasteners to aluminum sidewalls and an aluminum bed of a truck box may not be effective due to the lower strength of aluminum.
The accessory interface system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,882,419 to Aguirre et. al. and assigned to the same applicant as this application proposed a detachable interface apparatus that was adapted to be secured in a recess formed in the sidewall of a pick-up truck box. While this approach offered an effective solution to the above problems, the cost of the interface apparatus was a disadvantage for some consumers and for fleet purchasers. The removability of the interface apparatus was also viewed as a disadvantage for fleet purchasers because of the potential for theft or loss of the interface apparatus.
This disclosure is directed to addressing the above problems and other problems as summarized below.